Another Test

We ran from the arborex which was chasing us down, toppling over trees and crushing any plants that were in its way. I fired a barrage of fireballs using a spell but it didn't seem to do any damage to the monster.

I then used my skill and shot an explosive ball of energy at the arborex. The attack managed to hurt the arborex, but it didn't seem to deal much damage.

Saliza and Serith tried to attack it with their weapons. Saliza used her skill to ignite her axe and Serith used his skill to cover his sword in energy.

They struck the arborex's leg, but their weapons only managed to cut through about an inch of the wooden armor. Saliza and Serith quickly backed away from the arborex before it could crush them with its jaws.

"What should we do? We can't cut through that armor." Saliza asked.

"It's a B rank monster. We're supposed to fight this thing once we're level 50, and we've barely reached level 40!" I complained.

Serith summoned a radive and hopped on it.

"Maybe we can fly above it and keep hitting it with spells."

There's no way we can take out the arborex with one or two good blows like the other monsters we fought, so whittling it down with a barrage of spells is our best bet.

Saliza and I followed Serith and summoned radives to fly away from the arborex. We flew around the arborex while repeatedly shooting the monster with spells ranging from lightning blasts to fireballs.

Flowers started blooming on the arborex's back that released pollen into the air. Saliza got caught in the pollen and grew drowsy.

She fell off her radive so Serith and I flew down to save her. Vines shot out from the arborex's mouth that tried to grab us. The vines reached us the second it came out of its mouth.

Serith managed to dodge the vines but my radive got caught, so I had to jump off. I grabbed Saliza and summoned a dimorphorid below me. The dimorphorid wasn't strong enough to carry the two of us, but it was enough to help us land without any injuries.

I carried Saliza and ran away from the arborex that was chasing us. Serith shot the arborex with spells to distract it long enough for me to get behind a large tree.

The arborex used pollen to keep Serith away and ripped the tree off the ground using its jaws, but it couldn't find us behind the tree.

I sat behind a camouflaged gendion and tried to wake Saliza up before the arborex finds us.

Serith flew around the pollen and continued to fire spells at the arborex to get its attention. "Wake up!" I slapped Saliza's face over and over until she finally woke up.

"I'm up! What happened?" She pushed my hand away and looked around. Serith got caught in the vines and was being pulled into the arborex's jaws.

I shot an energy blade at the vines and freed Serith from them. He shot fire out of his hands and legs to fly away from the arborex. The arborex grabbed the tree it ripped off from the ground earlier and threw it in my direction.

Saliza quickly got in front of me and ignited her axe to cut the tree in half. The arborex came charging at us and we had to run away again.

"Do you have a plan to beat this thing?" Saliza asked.

"I didn't read much info about this stupid lizard, I don't know what to do!"

I can't think of a single way to beat this thing. I don't know what its weaknesses are and unlike the doruso, we're barely able to damage it even with spells and skills. I could be playing video games at home right now but no, some random portal decided that it would be better if I fought a giant wooden dinosaur.

I summoned the remaining monsters in my summoning slots to run around the arborex and distract it.

"Where are you going?" I kept running away from the arborex and didn't stop. "Forget this test, I'm out!" I ran until I was stopped by Reizo who came down from a tree.

"You can't leave this place until the arborex is dead." I looked back and saw Saliza dodging the arborex's tail and Serith trying to avoid getting eaten.

"I give up, we can't beat this thing." I begged Reizo to end the test but he wouldn't let me leave. "Does Saliza and Serith also want this test to end?"

Saliza came flying by after getting hit by the arborex's tail and crashed into a tree. She immediately got back up and ran back to fight the monster. "Get back here and help us you idiot!" She yelled at me while running.

"Can you at least tell me how to beat this thing or what it's weaknesses are?" Reizo shook his head.

"As a ventgard you'll be fighting alot of enemies in the future that will be stronger than you, and no one is going to give you a step-by-step instruction on how to beat them."

I was forced to go back and help Saliza and Serith. I still don't know what to do, if my attacks barely hurt this thing then how am I supposed to kill it.

Maybe I could summon a terrachus and dig a pit below the arborex...no, even with Saliza and Serith's help, digging a pit deep and wide enough to injure the arborex would take too long.

Maybe I should focus on trying to find a way to deal a good amount of damage to the arborex, but how am I supposed to get through that thick armor. Its joints and neck are the only parts of its body not protected by armor, I could try to attack it there and see if it does any damage.

I wanted to fire spells at the arborex's joints but I'm not confident in my accuracy and I might end up hitting Saliza or Serith who were moving all around the arborex. I had to get up close and attack it with my sword.

I snuck up on the arborex and waited for an opening. I grabbed onto its tail while it tried to catch Serith using vines and slowly climbed up its back while carefully avoiding the flowers. Once I made it to its neck, I thrust my sword into the neck and hoped that it would deal some damage to the arborex, but I only managed to give it a small cut on its neck. I held onto the arborex's neck as it tries to shake me off.

If I can't even cut through its joints then how am I supposed to hurt the arborex? I kept thinking while maintaining my grip on the arborex's neck until I found a way to hurt the arborex.

Even if the arborex has skin too thick to cut through, its eyes aren't, and I can blind it if I get both of its eyes.

I slowly crawled up the arborex's head to get closer to its eyes. A flower started blooming in front of me and shot out pollen. I pushed myself away from the flower and fell off the arborex after losing my grip.

I ran as the arborex chased me for climbing up its back. Saliza and Serith tried to help me but they were blocked by a wall of pollen the arborex created while chasing me. I fired spells at the arborex but I couldn't hit its eyes.

I need to think of a spell that can help me hit the arborex's eye before my legs give out. I went through all the spells I learned in my head but couldn't think of a spell that would help me.

Then I realized that I could just come up with a spell to help me. I slowed down and gathered mana into my legs. When the arborex got close and tried to bite me, I released the mana stored in one of my legs and blinked to the side. Then I released the mana in my other leg and blinked towards the arborex's face.

I successfully created a new spell, I think I'll name it 'twin steps'. I jammed my sword into the arborex's eye and managed to cut through it. The arborex lifted its head while I held onto my sword that was still stuck in its eye.

The arborex repeatedly rammed the side of its head into a tree until it snapped the tree. The damage caused me to fall off and get caught by its vines.

"Oh crap, Zeigel got caught! We need to help him!" Saliza kept running as fast as she could to save me but she was stopped by Serith who flew down in front of her.

"Wait! Don't you see all the pollen the arborex released? We can't just run through it or else we'll fall asleep, and if we try to run around it, we won't be able to reach Zeigel in time."

I struggled to break free from the vines that were dragging me into the jaws of the wooden beast.

"Well then how are we going to save him?"

Serith pointed at the eye that I destroyed.

"Zeigel already took out one of its eye. If we take out the other eye, we'll be able to blind it."

Before I was consumed by the arborex, Saliza threw Serith at the arborex. He landed on the side of the arborex's face and stabbed its eye.

The arborex released me from its vines and I fell to the ground along with Serith who was coughing out pollen. The arborex thrashed around while being unable to see.

"Are you alright? You flew through the pollen."

Serith kept coughing and said he was fine with a hoarse voice while trying to keep himself awake by pinching himself. Saliza arrived and asked how we're going to defeat the arborex.

"We can't hurt it from the outside, maybe we can kill it from the inside." I said.

"Are you saying that we should jump into the arborex's mouth?" Saliza asked with a face that said she was willing to do so.

"Not necessarily. I'm just saying that since its skin is too tough for us to cut through, maybe we could attack its insides which are probably not as tough, probably."

We discussed our plan to kill the arborex while it was rampaging around Feilo Forest.

We changed the monsters in our active summoning slot and went after the monster. Once we found the arborex blindly bulldozing through trees, I summoned an alpha burark and had it gather all of its heat into its mouth.

We used up all of our mana for a spell and shot the side of the arborex with a big blast of fire. It knocked over the arborex but it didn't do any serious damage.

We then summoned three verranids and two dorusos and ran over to the arborex. Our verranids webbed the arborex's jaws to the ground while it was open and we tried to pin the arborex's head to the ground as long as we can. The arborex was beginning to lift its head up and snapped some of the webs.

My alpha burark stood in front of the arborex and shot a beam of concentrated fire into the arborex's mouth, incinerating its insides. After struggling for the tensest ten seconds of our lives, the arborex stopped moving. Smoke escaped through its mouth as it laid motionlessly on the floor. If it still had its eyes, they would be drained of their color.

We slowly backed away from the arborex with our weapons still drawn. Our bracelets started to glow, signalling that we have defeated the arborex.

"Haha! We did it, we killed the arborex!" Saliza stood triumphantly on the arborex's corpse with her axe raised above her head.

"Congratulations, you three have finished your training. Go to the training room at 5am tomorrow and we'll begin your duties as ventgards." Reizo appeared behind us once again.

"If you haven't scanned the arborex, do it now before I get rid of it."

We quickly used our bracelets and started scanning the arborex.

*Scan completed, B rank monster added*

After we finished scanning, Reizo grabbed the arborex's corpse by the tail and dragged it further into the forest.

"Since we've finished our training, I'll treat you guys to whatever you want to eat at the cafeteria, you don't have to pay me back for it."

Saliza began telling Serith all the food she wanted to buy at the cafeteria and made him regret what he said.

"You guys go ahead and get lunch without me, there's something I wanna test out."

I went back to the training room. Most of the spells and skills I used were learnt from the spell books I borrowed from the library. But only now I realized that I don't need books to learn new spells, I can just create them by myself. All I need to do is just gather mana and think of what I want it to do.

This might mean that I can create a portal back home using a spell. I gathered mana into my index finger and thought about creating a portal. I closed my eyes and drew a large circle in front of me using my finger.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a portal right in front of me. I did it, I made a portal! I can finally go back home and end this nightmare!

I threw myself at the portal and ended up hitting myself on it. I placed my hand on the portal but it won't go through. I soon realized that I didn't make a portal, but instead a barrier that looks like a portal.

I tried to create a portal again but the results were the same. After several failed attempts I decided to see if there were any information about portals in the spellbooks. Not a single one of them had anything to do with portals.

I kept reading until I found the reason why I couldn't open up a portal back home. In one of the books explaining the basics of spells, I found out that while there are many spells I can create with mana, there is a limit to what I can make. There are certain things that I can't do with spells such as teleporting, reading minds and cloning.

That means that I can't get back home by simply casting spells. I got frustrated and threw the book on the ground.

I just want to go home! Why is it so hard for me to get everything back! Why must this happen to me?

I smashed through the barriers I created to release my anger until I calmed down.

There has to be another way back home, and I will find it.